Fruit-pickers complain of going unpaid

Relevant offers

Farming

Fonterra taps NZX to run farmer share trading Milk price inquiry to continue LIC earnings rise amid dairy confidence Another shot fired in milk price battle BayWa extends deal for T&G Optimism for booming sheep industry Possum fur prices boost industry BayWa lifts stake in T&G ahead of deadline Kiwifruit IP report 'will be released' Taranaki foreign farms buy-up nearer

Dozens of Bay of Plenty kiwifruit workers are crying foul over unpaid wages, lack of holiday allowances and contractors who allegedly give false details.

The Labour Department has confirmed it is investigating complaints, with the first received in March, and that some kiwifruit contractors have been spoken to.

It follows the jailing last week of three men – Michael Porter, 53, Miles Elliott, 45, and Dharminder "Bubbly" Singh, 42 – for three years each on a representative charge of conspiring to aid and abet foreign national fruit pickers to remain in the country illegally between 2004 and 2006.

Their company, Contract Labour Services, employed more than 500 workers in vineyards and orchards nationwide. Singh's 63-year-old father, Surjit, who worked as a company clerk, was sentenced to nine months' home detention.

Kiwifruit is big business in Bay of Plenty, with about 32,000 people employed in the industry during peak times, including 19,000 fulltime employees.

Auckland man Shane Moore is one of the pickers whose treatment is the subject of the new investigation.

Mr Moore said he went down to Bay of Plenty two months ago after hearing there was work available on kiwifruit orchards. He booked in at a backpacker hostel and the next morning, without having spoken to a kiwifruit contractor, jumped in a van which had come to the hostel seeking people for work that day on an orchard.

Mr Moore said he worked for one full day at an orchard outside Katikati and was told he would be paid $13.50 an hour. He gave the contractor his bank account number and IRD number and was told the name of the orchard.

But Mr Moore said he never received his payment and, when he went to check the name of the orchard, it did not exist. He did not get the name of the contractor.

He understands that many other people who went from the hostel did not get paid either.

Labour Department Bay of Plenty service manager Murray Thompson said the centre had received "a number of complaints from employees of kiwifruit contractors in the Bay of Plenty region about underpayments".

Mr Thompson said most of the complaints related to wages and holiday allowances and, although many had been successfully dealt with, some were still under investigation.

He could not say exactly how many complaints had been received. The department had undertaken an information, education and compliance campaign in the region.

Mr Moore said he planned to go back to Bay of Plenty to try to claim his wages.